Was just getting JP up and just realized Freelancer is a better monk then monk?!

[DD The Pumpkin King]

I got pretty good at stacking monster so I'm getting JP way faster then I'm getting EXP.

So just now I'm sitting here tweaking my Monk/thief build with Adele. Idea was just to make her as fast possible. Between the lvl12 (faster turn when Default or use skill) and 10% per BP used passive.

Out of curiousity swap her to Freelancer. Turns out...way better stats. It's even faster as whole as the monk only is when using the lvl12 trait.

So monk has been outmonked. Damage isn't even close either.

[Sakhari]

Yeah, pretty much. Overall, Monk just really isn't that great of a job in the long run, especially compared to the Thief which, outside of maybe 2 or 3 specific enemies, can almost singlehandedly win the rest of the game for you. Even on the Hard difficulty.

[JonWoo]

Beast master ends up being even better than freelancer. Until you get the subj-job special 2 ability having a BM main with anything as sub just makes it a better version of whatever is subbed.

[DD The Pumpkin King]

Originally posted by Jonwoo89:

Beast master ends up being even better than freelancer. Until you get the subj-job special 2 ability having a BM main with anything as sub just makes it a better version of whatever is subbed.

ya I read how the BM system works. I'll avoid it for now since it has no cap, unless I get desperate. I would like some variety in my classes and there appearance.

Although a 4 furry team might be a funny thing for a few rounds.

[Nigrescence]

I just abused Spiritmaster with its op job specialties to beat a boss. It was an experiment since my previous setup was failing miserably against her. When all four characters have Spiritmaster as primary job, you have all spirits on all characters, meaning regularly everyone heals hp, mp, and statuses multiple times in a round. All you have to do is keep your BP at 1 or lower. Sure it hurts your ability to BP save and unleash in a burst, but with the amount of sustain provided, that's no problem. I don't think I particularly like the job skills themselves otherwise, but you can easily keep a sub-job of your liking to use skills.

However I'm still leveling up jobs. So I can't speak to Beastmaster. I did notice that Freelancer has massively boosted in power when a primary job since I've maxed a few jobs, but you can't level new jobs by putting Freelancer as primary. It might be one of the strongest end-game though.

I have enjoyed monk as my go-to sub-job for the pressure point ability, but maybe body slam is just as good. Like I said, I'm still leveling jobs so I'm nowhere near where I need to be to figure out ideals. I'm putting off Beastmaster because I keep not wanting to do the beast hunt. But the longer I put it off the more beasts to capture get generated and the more behind I get. So maybe I should bite the bullet and prioritize it now just for completion sake.

[JonWoo]

Beast hunting can be done passively thought it takes time. At level 10 or so you get an ability that gives you a 30% chance to capture a defeated monster. More actively later on you can use the Results Guaranteed ability of the Shadow so you don't even have to hurt them, it just automatically succeeds. The Across the Board skill from the final class also lets you use Capture on the entire enemy party. So with both, go into a fight, use Capture, and you've caught everything in one move.

[Sakhari]

Originally posted by Nigrescence:

I'm putting off beastmaster because I keep not wanting to do the beast hunt. But the longer I put it off the more beasts to capture get generated and the more behind I get. So maybe I should bite the bullet and prioritize it now just for completion sake.

If you're capturing just for completion purposes, then fair enough but don't go into it feeling like you need to do it for the stat boosts. Yes, the stat-boosting specialty gets absurd the more you capture but it's also completely unnecessary for anything that the game throws at you. It's effectively just a 'win harder' gimmick.

If you're struggling with any of the bosses, there are several specific abilities that are completely broken on their own. Chaining Body Slams amounts to easy wins through most of Chapter 1 and after that, Godspeed Strike on the Thief is the closest thing to a win-button for the rest of the game (outside of a small handful of specific enemies that are immune to physical damage). And with the 16 actions that a fight generally lets you start with, those certainly aren't the only options.

You can easily reach a point where you're winning every fight on the first turn (even on Hard) with or without the boost from a Beastmaster (or Freelancer, for that matter) so don't be concerned about missing anything important if you'd prefer not to bother.

[Nigrescence]

I mean I already win nearly every fight on the first turn (I've only ever played on Hard) and it's just from using monk's Pressure Point. Sure it's high risk high reward but as long as you play it right you can come out ahead. Having the Sub-Job BP Saver from Pictomancer (the ONLY GOOD THING THAT JOB IS FOR) is necessary to make it really shine, though I still benefited from it even before getting that ability. And yes, before I got Pressure Point I abused Body Slam. Never tried Godspeed Strike yet, I'll have to check it out sometime.

[Peredur]

If you want to abuse jobs, one of the easiest solution is having one character with phantom lvl12+ and either ranger (one target, only use MP) either salve-maker (all ennemies, consume also items).
Because of the phantom, it's not something doable too soon into the game but phantom makes you start first and garantees applying a status ailment, allowing you to go through all fights without enemies acting once. Strangely, bosses are not immune to status ailments.

(The game is poorly balanced. The original studio did so much better.)

[DD The Pumpkin King]

Made some adjustments (I'm at the beginning of chapter 3) that have made things way more enjoyable.

One: I made using freelance(main) and thief (for the god speed strike) off limits. I like making builds, which means lvling up the jobs. I didn't find body slam all that crazy though it's certainly good. But getting +15 stat every lvl 12 was a bit much, it's similar to overleveling your self to the point builds don't matter and was easily outclassing other jobs (Freelancer was better mage then all the mage jobs white/black/red). If the lvl12 specialty didn't make it so over the top I'd like it.

Two: Cheated and just got unlimited JP. Again I like making builds. Wasting hours doing repetitive easy battles at 4x speed isn't my idea of an enjoyable game. This also helped bypass the issue of over leveling.

To head off anyone saying "Wait till endgame to lvl up JP". No, what's the point of not making use the mechanics that make the game enjoyable until you've been through all the content. It's that stupid argument people make about other RPG's "It gets good after about 40 hours in"

Apologize for the rant but I completely recommend just cheating the jobs so you can actually theory craft and make builds. XP, I'm leaving that for the old fashion way.

[Nigrescence]

Playing around more I realize just how powerful Body Slam is with delaying the enemy. It's making farming these world bosses for ultimate gear easy.

Main Job of Swordmaster for the A scaling daggers or S scaling swords, and then Dual Wield to activate all of the stat boosts of the Freelancer. Plus Body Slam.

It's practically too powerful.

[Peredur]

Originally posted by DDNappaTheProducer:

I didn't find body slam all that crazy though it's certainly good.

When you can get Body Slam, it's more than 4 times the damages of normal base attack for only twice the cost (attack = 1 BP, BS = 2 BP). And it allows you to be able to end most fights on the first turn (with enough characters using it).
Later (but still quite early in the game), it becomes even better when you can halve its cost (making it cost the same as a normal base attack for still more than 4 times the damage output).

For comparison, God Speed which is considered one of the strongest skills:
- costs 1BP and 99MP, meaning you're limited in its number of use by the max MP you have and the MP you can recover (for multiple uses in a turn, over a fight, and over several fights)
- have some of its damage delayed, meaning either the second part of the damage is lost if the targer dies before it, else the target can attack before the full damages are applied

Body Slam is not the strongest, but it's strong, costs nothing, is available early, is easy to build, is relevant until late into the game.

[ProxyJames]

Originally posted by DDNappaTheProducer:

Originally posted by Jonwoo89:

Beast master ends up being even better than freelancer. Until you get the subj-job special 2 ability having a BM main with anything as sub just makes it a better version of whatever is subbed.

ya I read how the BM system works. I'll avoid it for now since it has no cap, unless I get desperate. I would like some variety in my classes and there appearance.

Although a 4 furry team might be a funny thing for a few rounds.

Your going to want to dip into BM anyways because they have two very strong passives: mp saver witch reduces mp used by 20% and raw power witch boosts physical damage by 10% per use of brave (so that's a extra 40% damage!)
I was reading up on stuff and down the line you are going to want to max beastmaster, sometime near the end of the game it starts to fall off unless you spend a really long time farming beasts and there is a end game ability that let's you use the secondary specialty while the job is set to sub class and this is a boon if you low hp/defense classes.
I mean you could farm booster buns for a while too

[Dadoosan]

You can use Freelancer's body slam to get through the entire game if you want to.